Monday, January 16, 2012

[ZESTCaste] Caste-ing aspersions (Opinion)

Caste-ing aspersionsThe Indian Express Posted online: Tue Jan 17 2012, 04:03 hrsWhen the EC ordered that statues of Mayawati and those of elephants,erected across UP during her term as chief minister, be covered inplastic, lest their polished resplendence unduly influence voters'choices, the absurdity was staggering. Wastage of public money andadministrative effort on acres of plastic covering apart, the orderraised a debate on what may be triggers for coded influence, what maybe the lengths we should go to counter them, and what could be thelimits on the model code of conduct. The elephant is the electionsymbol of Mayawati's BSP, but the order is strikingly over-the-top.And being at the heart of the controversy she was in a good positionto enrich the debate with nuance. Instead, she has reflexivelyattacked the EC by imputing casteist motives, saying that if it doesnot order a similar covering of symbols associated with the Congressand the RLD, it could be taken to be "anti-Dalit".

This is an outrageous suggestion, and Mayawati, as the UP CM and animmensely influential leader of a political party, has to be aware ofthe recklessness of such attacks. The EC has been vital to thiscountry's democratic processes — it gives elections a stamp ofcredibility by ensuring fairness in polling and campaign, and also byusing its powers over the administration in an election-bound area tocurb coercion and undue social and political influence. By helping toensure a vote without fear or favour, the EC has given hithertomarginalised groups a solid stake in elections and, by extension,governance. Mayawati is one of the icons of this democraticinclusiveness — and by venting her rage as she has done, she courtsthe danger of not only drawing the commission into an unseemlycrossfire, but also of undermining an institution that has beencrucial to the deepening of Indian democracy.

The insincerity of using the blunt charge of casteism where a moreengaged debate is called for undermines Mayawati's politics too. Sheis an exemplar of the modernising potential of Indian democracy — herpolitics integrated socially oppressed groups into the mainstream,it's given them dignity, and by then taking the sociallyconfrontational edge off her rhetoric, she has opened her platform, ina bottom-up pyramid, to all other sections of society. UP's partiesappear to be caught in a frenetic search for caste-and-communityarithmetic at the moment. But as the politician who truly levelledexisting and notional hierarchies, at least in electoral politics,Mayawati must know that she does not have the luxury of returning toan older politics of anxiety simply to satisfy her short-termconcerns.